Law Offices:
News & announcements for the week ofNovember 13, 2000

Students who would like to learn how to practice law while they are
in law school should apply for the in-house clinical education program,
LAW OFFICES. Applications are now available for the Spring. The Spring
applications are due no later than at 12:00 Noon, Friday, November 17,
2000.

Students may apply for Law Offices after they have completed the equivalent
to their first year of law school (27 credits). To be considered for a
place, ALL students must complete and return a completed Law Offices application.
Applications
will be available in the Law Offices beginning Monday, October 23,
and they must be turned in to the Law Offices’ Receptionist in Suite 600
by 12:00 NOON on November 17, 2000.

Students who have previously taken or who are now taking Law Offices
(continuing Law Offices students), and who submit their applications by
the due date will be given preference in their same practice group if availability
permits. Next, priority will be given to the top ten students on each first
choice waiting list who did not turn down a place for Fall 2000, who were
on the waiting list in the division they have marked as first choice, and
who submitted their Spring application by the due date. New students who
have submitted their applications by the due date will be selected in the
Law Offices lottery.

In three of the in-house programs - employment discrimination/civil
rights litigation with some general practice program, the criminal defense
litigation program, and ADR program - students are given the option of
enrolling for three or four credits. Students who enroll for four
credits put in a minimum of sixteen hours per week, and students who enroll
for three credits put in a minimum of twelve hours per week during the
fourteen-week semester. In the health law, ITEC, and the tax litigation
programs students enroll for three credits and put in a minimum of twelve
hours per week. Students in FDLA enroll for two credits and put in a minimum
of eight hours per week.

For more information, you may talk with the clinical professors who
supervise the various practice groups: Professors Gonzalez (room
629), Leader (625), and Norton (room 623) for employment discrimination/civil
rights with some general practice; Professors Kling (room 625) and Thomas
(room 609) for criminal defense; Professor Kraus (room 627) for health
law; Professor Kentra (room 611) for mediation & other ADR procedures;
Professor Williams (room 631) for ITEC; and Professor Decatorsmith (room
625) for tax. You may contact Professor Walz (FDLA) at (773) 292-9780.
Professor Laser (room 631) is also available to answer your questions.

LEGAL EXTERNSHIP PROGRAMSPRING 2001 - THIRD YEAR STUDENTS ONLY:

Do you wish to develop your legal skills, gain practical legal experience
in a specialized area of law with a corporation, firm or government agency,
and make yourself more marketable to prospective employers upon graduation?
If so, consider applying to the Legal Externship Program for Spring 2001
Semester.

The Legal Externship Program is a 4-credit hour non-graded program.
The program is open to students in their last two semesters of law school.
The student selects the area of law in which he/she wishes to extern.

For the fieldwork component, an extern is placed in a private
or public, civil or criminal practice and is required to work a minimum
of 16 hours a week at his/her designated placement. Externs interested
in civil law may select to work under the supervision of general counsel
in major corporations or under the supervision of designated teaching lawyers
in well-known firms or specific government agencies. Externs may
specialize in such diverse legal areas as tax, commodities, securities,
corporate, health care, medical malpractice, general corporate law, etc.
Those interested in criminal law may select to work with the States Attorney's
Office, Public Defender's Office, or the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Many externships offer the externs opportunities to obtain a 711 license
and appear in court.

Information about the program and an accompanying application
form will be available in the Law Offices reception area and in the Careers
Services office as of Monday, October 23, 2000. Applications must
be turned in to Room 612 by 12:00 P.M. on Friday, November 17th.

All applicants must have scheduled and completed an interview
with Professor Gross prior to turning in their applications.

If you are interested in learning more about externship opportunities
or in applying to the program, please see Professor Vivien Gross in Room
617.

EXCITING SUMMER EXTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS WHO WILL HAVE
COMPLETED THEIR SECOND YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL BY MAY, 2001

SUMMER 2001 SEMESTER: EXTERNSHIPS WITH U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICENORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

If you are interested in exposure to and possible participation in federal
trial and appellate practice while assisting the U.S. Attorney’s Office
in handling its multitude of important cases, please pick up an application
from Professor Gross in Room 617.

Completed applications must be received at the Office of the U.S. Attorney
by Friday, December 8, 2000. The reason for this accelerated date
is because each accepted extern must go through a security clearance, which
takes several weeks.

To receive law school credit for this externship, should you be selected
by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, you must enroll in the law school’s Summer
Legal Externship Program.

Professor Gross will be happy to answer any questions you may have
about either the Externship Program or the externship position with the
U.S. Attorney’s Office.

A NEW CLINICAL PROGRAM -INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & ENTREPRENURSHIP CLINIC (ITEC)

Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Information Technology & Entrepreneurship
Clinic (ITEC) fills two needs in the Chicagoland technology community.
First, ITEC provides competent technology law services to small technology
firms and local start-ups, at affordable rates through its unique fee generating
model (hyperlink). ITEC attorneys and students help these companies
stay abreast of the rapidly evolving legal issues relevant to the technology
entrepreneur.

Second, and most importantly, ITEC provides Chicago-Kent law students
with practical, hands-on experience working on cutting-edge legal issues,
under the supervision of experienced technology attorneys. These
students will then travel into the Chicago legal market upon graduation,
providing Chicago with technologically savvy lawyers to meet its developing
technology law needs.

ITEC assists new ventures through the each stage of developing a start-up
-- business organization; protection of intellectual property rights; transactional
and contract drafting; and, current advice regarding evolving legal issues
relevant to doing business on the Internet. Students who intern in
ITEC will assist in providing legal services to established IT companies
and Internet start-ups.

A NEW CLINICAL PROGRAM - FIRST DEFENSE LEGAL AID

First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA), the only program of its kind in the
country, fills the gap in Illinois’ public defender system by providing
24-hour free legal representation to adults and children in police custody
or under police investigation. FDLA provides a unique “frontline”
criminal defense experience for students, enabling them to see: how evidence
is collected and created; the tactics of the Chicago Police Department
when trying to extract a confession or question witnesses; the role that
the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Felony Review Team plays during the
beginning stages of a criminal investigation; and the utter vulnerability
of children and adults when under intensive and sometimes abusive interrogation.
In addition to this stationhouse representation, DSLA also works toward
the permanent improvement of our criminal justice system by educating the
public, organizing community residents to combat police misconduct, by
engaging in legislative and community advocacy, investigating patterns
of misconduct by the Chicago Police, taking select criminal defense cases
to trial, and initiating 42 U.S.C. §1983 litigation to improve the
policies and procedures of the Chicago Police as they relate to the treatment
of persons in police custody.

Students participating in the FDLA class must be eligible for a Illinois
Supreme Court Rule 711 license. Students representing FDLA clients
at Chicago Police Stations will gain unique insight into the criminal justice
system at its earliest stage and be able to:

1. View and Document Line-Ups, DNA testing, and Halt Lie Detector Tests.
2. Assert a Client’s 5th Amendment Right to Remain Silent and 6th Amendment
Right to Counsel.
3. Gather Information from the Police on the Progress of the Investigation.
4. Document Police Brutality and other Misconduct.
5. Counsel Clients and Provide Information to their Families.
6. Interview Witnesses.
7. Demand a Client’s Immediate Release at the Police Station and in
Court.

LAW OFFICES OF CHICAGO-KENT

The Law Offices of Chicago-Kent offers nine long-standing programs in
live-client clinical legal education which accommodate over 150 students
in the fall and spring semesters and over 50 students in the summer semester.